Russ Bellar Trial Video...Jimmy Houston May Be Involved

[Mergie Master]

If this is for real it's sick!

Bellar Trial Video

This video was used as evidence in the sentencing phase of the Federal trial of Russ Bellar in January of 2005. It represents only a few minutes of the estimated 400 hours of confiscated video footage seized during the pre-trial investigation and is now a matter of public record

<font size="-1" face="verdana,arial,helv">Introduction- Captive deer and elk industry issues



Jimmy Houston in a pen over hidden bait



Drugged deer over bait shot with a blunt arrow



Deer staggers up to gun barrel



Dying deer propped up for paid shoot



Disease risk of captive deer and elk

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this stuff just really pisses me off. id love to get my hands on the person running this thing.

of course, this is an example of something that PETA loves to see. just adds more fuel to the fire.

[Mergie Master]

Too true.

And I always liked Jimmy Houston.

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yes MM, he WAS the man.

[Mergie Master]

Here's some articles about the case with a lot of names, one a former NFL quarterback:

His associate pleads guilty in deal to testify

By Rebecca S. Green
The Journal Gazette

SOUTH BEND – The property manager of a Peru deer farm pleaded guilty Monday morning as part of an agreement in which he is to testify against his boss in the federal trial related to a “high-fence” deer hunting operation.

Hinds Tom Jones, of Edwards, Miss., is the property manager of “Bellar’s Place,” a 1,200-acre fenced deer farm in Peru owned by Russell G. Bellar.

In July, a federal grand jury indicted both Jones and Bellar with more than 30 violations of the Lacey Act, a federal wildlife protection law that prohibits the transportation and sale in interstate commerce of any wildlife taken or possessed in violation of any state law.

The indictment charges Bellar and Jones with illegally selling and transporting wildlife across state lines, facilitating the illegal killing and transportation of wildlife, and knowingly providing false information to federal agents.

Jones pleaded guilty to a single charge that he conspired with Bellar to violate the wildlife law. According to court documents, the additional counts from the federal indictment will be dismissed at sentencing. The agreement is contingent on testimony Jones will provide in the trial against Bellar which started Monday morning with jury selection.

The jury of nine men and seven women, was seated by Monday afternoon. In the first day of what is scheduled to be at least a two-week trial, federal prosecutors were able to call four witnesses, including three hunters who had participated in allegedly illegal hunts.

During opening arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald J. Schmid briefly sketched the government’s case against Bellar, using the head of a 12-point buck as a prop. Throughout the remainder Monday’s proceedings, the head remained propped on chairs behind the federal prosecutors.

Bellar hosted illegal “canned” deer hunts, was paid thousands of dollars by out-of-state residents to kill the deer inside his high-fenced property, used tranquilizers to sedate the deer, and used drugs to reverse the sedatives, contaminating the deer meat, Schmid said.

“He violated a whole host of Indiana hunting rules,” Schmid said.

Then, when questioned by federal and state investigators, Bellar told “big lies about big bucks,” Schmid said.

One of Bellar’s three-member defense team, Indianapolis-based James H. Voyles, argued Bellar was raising deer as livestock according to Indiana law.

The issue is a conflict between the federal government and the Indiana government, with neither understanding the plight of the deer farmer, Voyles said.

Lt. Colonel Jeff Wells, the executive officer for law enforcement with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources testified first for the government, and outlined for the jury Indiana’s white-tailed deer hunting laws.

Indiana law prohibits the killing of more than one antlered or male deer during a year, regardless of hunting permits for various seasons such as archery or firearms, Wells said.

The state also bans the use of bait to attract deer, he said.

Schmid also questioned Wells about the state’s definition of a wild animal, a definition that, he said, included “cervidae,” the family of animals that includes white-tailed deer. He also asked Wells about conversations the conservation office had with Bellar about his deer farm.

After Wells testified, Greg Bridgers, a Tennessee home builder, told the jury he paid $3,000 to hunt at “Bellar’s Place” in December 2003, and killed two bucks during the course of his stay.

Wearing a shirt with a pattern of white-tailed deer in a woods, Bridgers testified the first buck he shot had been lying in a small fenced area, and said Jones believed the deer was ill and near death.

According to Bridgers, Jones and Bellar spoke on the telephone about the condition of the deer and Jones said Bellar would allow Bridgers to shoot the buck at an additional cost of $15,000.

“It was an exorbitant amount of money to shoot a deer in a pen,” Bridgers said.

He tried to negotiate a lower price, but later agreed to pay the $15,000 and, went to the pen to shoot the deer, accompanied by Jones and a man with a video camera.

“(Jones) had to literally push the deer … to get it up off the ground,” Bridgers said. “That’s how sick the deer was.”

The deer stood up, and Bridgers said he shot it through the heart. Then the group re-enacted what took place for the video camera, Bridgers said, “as if it was a real hunt out in the wild.”

At the end of the week, Bridgers said he shot another buck, this one evidently malnourished, putting it “out of its misery.”

According to testimony, Bridgers’ hunting license was not credited for the first buck he shot.

Schmid produced for the jury pictures of the two pair of antlers now hanging on Bridgers’ office wall, and asked Bridgers if part of the money for the hunt was paid to get the two racks back to Tennessee with him.

“You bet your boots,” Bridgers said.

Prosecution testimony is scheduled to continue today.


Trial starts in illegal deer hunt case
Man accused of letting clients kill sedated animals

By MATTHEW S. GALBRAITH
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- As a jury was seated to hear a 38-count case alleging Russell Bellar allowed high-paying clients to kill drugged deer, Bellar's former property manager and co-defendant pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.

Under the plea agreement, Hinds Thomas Jones is expected to testify against Bellar for the government.

Bellar, of Peru, Ind., went on trial Monday. He's accused of conducting illegal canned deer hunts in which customers selected trophy bucks with large antlers beginning in 2001 at a facility he owned in Miami County.

Bellar's attorney claims he was a deer farmer who raised domesticated animals and had the state's permission to charge hunting fees.

"Mr. Bellar believes he can have people hunt on his farm," attorney James Voyles told jurors in his opening statement Monday afternoon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Schmid urged jurors to reject the defense argument that the deer were not wild animals, calling it a smoke screen to hide the facts.

"Mr. Bellar said some big lies about big bucks," Schmid told the jury.

An indictment returned in July charged Bellar and Jones with using Bellar's farm to allow unlicensed hunters to use illegal weapons and bait to hunt the bucks. Various state and federal hunting violations were alleged.

Customers paid thousands of dollars to the defendants, the indictment states. They allegedly included some celebrities who took part in hunts for promotional purposes, court records show.

Jones, of Edwards, Miss., pleaded guilty Monday morning to conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act is a 1900 federal law that protects wildlife from being killed improperly and shipped across state lines.

Jones faces up to five years in prison and should be able to provide crucial evidence about the operation.

Bellar's Place was a hunting facility consisting of a lodge and fenced-in pens and larger gaming areas. It was advertised as a white-tailed deer hunting operation.

A brochure promised customers hunts that end with a "big buck."

An Internet ad offered guided hunts to ensure a trophy buck.

Jones admitted in a plea agreement that he and Bellar solicited hunters willing to pay thousands of dollars to kill trophy bucks, which he described as male white-tailed deer with large antler racks.

Bellar personally set the price to be charged, ranging from $4,000 to $20,000 per buck, Jones stated in his plea agreement.

Jones described how deer were tranquilized and moved to small fenced-in pens for customers to choose their own bucks, which then were given reversal drugs.

"Hunters were then taken to specific hunting tree stands in these high-fence pens and allowed to hunt the selected deer," Jones stated.

The antlers, meat and hides were shipped in interstate commerce to customers, the plea agreement adds.

According to the indictment, Bellar's Place was the site of more than 50 illegal hunts over three years. In his promotional materials, Bellar listed past celebrity clients, including Ronnie Dunn of the country music duo Brooks and Dunn and professional fisherman and TV host Jimmy Houston.

The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.

Staff writer Matthew S. Galbraith:

mgalbraith@sbtinfo.com


Trial exposes the sham that is canned hunting

As the canned hunt crowd rallied around its beleaguered hero Russ Bellar last summer, it presented a variety of arguments intended to stick up for the guy after he was hit with a 38-count federal indictment that accused him of running an illegal deer hunting operation.
One of those arguments was that people opposed to canned hunts shouldn’t criticize what they’ve never seen or done. These places are really on the up-and-up, they said.

Well, over the past week the unknowing public got a detailed look at what goes on behind the high fences at one of those operations – Bellar’s Place, a 1,400-acre shooting preserve near Peru.

Witness after witness after witness after witness provided sworn testimony before a federal jury in U.S. District Court in South Bend about their experiences there:

•Country music star Ronnie Dunn testified that Bellar pointed out a deer for him to kill and that he shot it in a fenced-in pen. Under cross-examination by Bellar’s legal team, Dunn characterized the experience as something akin to “slaughtering cattle.”

•Michael Kattawar Jr. of Nashville, Tenn., testified that he paid $25,000 in 2003 to kill five bucks using a bow and a rifle while hunting near bait. Indiana deer-hunting regulations prohibit the use of bait and allow only one buck, but Kattawar said Bellar’s Place was willing to let him take “as many deer as you want as long as you pay for it.”

•Jeff Wickersham, who spent one season in the NFL as a quarterback with the Miami Dolphins, chose the deer he wanted to kill from a magazine.

“They gave me a price and I agreed to it,” he testified. “I was there to hunt that specific deer.”

Wickersham said the price was $20,000, that the deer was drugged and transported to the farm in a horse trailer. The deer was released from the trailer directly into the pen where Wickersham said he killed it in about 30 minutes after employees of Bellar’s Place chased it from the fence line.

•Wickersham’s friend, Tommy Freiman, testified that he didn’t want to “hunt” in a small pen and planned to kill a deer in a larger pen. Crunched for time because of a departing air flight, he ended up shooting one in the smaller pen anyway because he couldn’t wait any longer.

•Ivan Johnson of Jonesboro, Ga., testified he killed two bucks for a video promoting “Rack Attract,” a deer bait developed and owned by Hinds Tom Jones, Bellar’s property manager who pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count in the federal indictment and is scheduled to take the stand this week. Johnson is an investor in Rack Attract.

•Johnson also admitted to complicity in a scheme to fool another of Bellar’s clients, his friend Roger Torri of Georgia. Torri testified that he wounded a deer at the facility in 2003 but couldn’t find it. A couple of weeks later, a deer Tommy Freiman had picked out died overnight after having been tranquilized. Freiman testified that he told Hinds Jones he no longer wanted a deer that was already dead. Freiman said Johnson began making phone calls to see who wanted the deer, describing the deer to people as if it had been shot. He got a taker on the second call. In separate testimony, Torri testified that Johnson called to say that his wounded deer had been found. In reality, it was the Freiman deer that had died from a tranquilizer overdose. Torri took the antlers.

•Fred Rowan, CEO and chairman of Carter’s Clothing Inc., testified that he shot three bucks in a 3- to 4-hour span with his son, Andy, who shot his buck within an hour in a 5- to 10-acre pen. They didn’t even stay the whole day, but Fred Rowan said he plunked down $20,000 for the biggest of his three deer, and $8,000 to $10,000 for the smaller two.

Many of these and other so-called “hunts” were videotaped by Rusty Camp for sale to the clients or to promote the facility to future clients. Camp said he made between 20 and 30 videos, of which five to 10 were fake.

“The hunts were pretty much done backward,” he told the court.

Camp said clients would shoot deer, then go back and re-enact for the cameras. He testified some clients had a hard time grasping the concept.

Not Sydney Meachum, a friend of Hinds Jones from Mississippi, who testified that he was invited by Bellar and Jones to help them make a video. Meachum said he learned when he got to Bellar’s Place that it was a “fake hunt.”

He then testified that he sat in a tree stand, fired an arrow and acted as if he had killed a deer. The deer was darted by a tranquilizer for the video. Meachum said that he’s left-handed but shot a right-handed bow for the video. He testified that fake blood was applied to the deer.

“I liked that,” Meachum said. “It made it look all real.” Real phony.

About as phony as the defense team’s efforts to portray Bellar as someone confused by the hunting rules and regulations of Indiana as they pertain to his pen-raised deer. That strategy took a blow Wednesday when Bellar’s Web site ( www.bellar.net ) was shown to the jurors. On the site was a statement advising clients “Since there is no exemption for hunting preserves in Indiana, we have to follow the states weapon seasons.”

The Web site that was accessed live in the courtroom Wednesday is no longer available. Someone pulled the plug.

All of this tells us that what went on at Bellar’s Place was a charade. It shouldn’t matter at this point what the jury decides in this case. It shouldn’t matter whether the jury blames Bellar or Jones or both, or neither.

The damage is done. Canned hunting has been exposed.

“It made it look all real.”

[Mergie Master]

And the raid on the ranch by the GWs...

Fenced Deer Farm Raided - Federal and state officials took records from a hunting preserve called Bellar's Place

by George McLaren

george.mclaren@indystar.com

Authorities and owners confirmed that federal and state wildlife officials raided Indiana's largest private hunting preserve and confiscated its business records. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Schmid of South Bend said the raids involved no arrests, but he would provide no additional details.


"As part of the federal investigation, we executed three search warrants at three separate locations in Miami County," Schmid said. He declined to say whether any federal indictments had been issued or would be forthcoming.


Peru developer and deer farmer Russ Bellar said three raids occurred at 6:00 a.m. at his preserve, his home, and his office. "I have no clue what they're looking for. This is all political stuff, that's all it is," said Bellar, who has been operating a fenced hunting preserve known as Bellar's Place for several years and is a board member of the Indiana Deer Farmers Association. "They took everything I had pertaining to deer--pictures, records, everything," he said.


State conservation officers assisted U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials in the raid. A spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources declined to comment. Brad Thurston, a deer farmer, and another board member of the state deer farming group said the probe may involve the federal Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to buy, sell, transport, or possess wildlife in violation of state law.


"It could only be instigated by the state. The feds wouldn't instigate it. They wouldn't have any reason, unless a state law was violated," said Thurston, an Indianapolis surgeon, who is a board member of the North American Deer Farming Association.


DNR officials have said it's unlawful to sell specific animals to be hunted. Deer preserve operators have maintained they can charge "trespassing" or guiding fees to make such hunts legal. Bellar says he charges "bed and breakfast" fees to hunters. His business is by far the largest deer farming operation in Indiana, boasting on its web site of having more than one deer per acre on the 1,100 acre fenced spread. Bellar's state application to keep a captive deer last year reported he owned 1,267 deer, with some valued up to $20,000.


The company invites hunters to enjoy a four star lodge while using heated deer stands, telling prospective clients they can "see more bucks in one day than most people see in a lifetime."


The issue of fenced hunting preserves has proven controversial in recent years. Backed by large political contributions from deer farmers, some state legislators have sought to expand legal rights of private preserves, which currently can offer deer hunts only under regular state approved rules and seasons.


Wildlife and sportsmen's groups have fought against such proposals, and last year all sides agreed to mediate the issues in a committee. A panel of deer farmers, wildlife experts and sporting representatives, along with DNR and state animal health officials, has been meeting for several months on the issues.

Committee members toured Bellar's Place last Fall. Bellar said the raids followed years of criticism from state officials. "They are against what I do," he said. "They are against anyone who raises white tail deer. They hate us with a passion."

[Tackle Box]

There are some crazy people in this world [img]graemlins/shakehead.gif[/img]